Search Results: emotional needs

My (30F) guy (50M) and I have been together for close to 8 years now. He catfished me into thinking he was younger but because we mentally connected first, I overlooked the age gap. In recent years, things have taken a bad turn. I don’t know if it’s because he is dealing with the loss of his dad or learning how to be a caretaker to his 88 year old mom but he snaps very quickly lately.

We are long distance and fight a lot more than normal and because he is my first experience, I am unsure what is normal and not okay. When he gets mad or jealous, he says horrible things — he has called me things like slut, whore, stupid bitch, etc. Recently, he has been mad about how I financially support my family who he considers freeloaders. I have never asked him for any money but he doesn’t want me to spend mine on them either. He has also critiqued my weight in the past and made comments about stretch marks and said I need to look better and at my age he was very good looking.

It’s hard because I do work on myself and I’ve never commented on how he looks even though he is balding (understandable at his age and not an issue for me) and not exactly in great shape. He is just very critical. But our most current fight relating to my family was the worst:

When he threatened to send XXX pics of me to my family, I freaked out and told my sister. He is mad that I went to my sister and “threw him under the bus” because those threats were between me and him. He called me useless and said he wishes he had used and disposed of me.

I told him I’m done with him but today he is acting like nothing happened. Is this all normal? Is this how couples fight or is this emotional abuse? He laughs and says I’m being dramatic when I bring this up.